Asus Eee PC S101

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 24th October 2008
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Eee PC S101 - Features

Being small and lightweight are the main things that a sub-notebook, netbook or UMPC or whateveryacallit should aim for and that's something that Asus' line of Eee PCs have always excelled at.

Hell, I can fit my Eee PC 701 into my back pocket if I've not had a doughnut that week and have decided to dip into the wardrobe of yesteryear. Khakis – feel it, dawg.

That said, the Eee PC S101 still feels like a huge improvement over previous models of the Eee. It feels smaller, lighter and thinner than ever before and a lot of that is to do with how the innards and outards of the S101 have been reorganised.

Looking at the side of the Eee PC S101, you might think that the feature-set had been culled a little from previous versions. Where's the Ethernet socket or the card reader? Well, they're still there, I assure you – they've just been shifted around a fair bit to make use of the space in the chassis more effectively.

Asus Eee PC S101 Asus Eee PC S101 - Features

The SD card reader for example has been moved from where it sat on the previous models of the Eee, such as the 1000H and 901, to the very back of the unit. It's still on the right hand side and it's still very accessible, but now it's just below the hinge. It may sound a weird move, but it actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it and the fact that it is facing away from the user means you can easily pop cards in and out.

The same is true of the Ethernet port, which has been moved to the back of the unit and is on the opposing side to the SD card reader. Again, putting the port here is a stroke of genius and means that you'll no longer have to have the thick network cable curved awkwardly into the side of your Linux-based buddy.

The other piece of good news is that this hasn't compromised the other connections of the S101 – it still has three USB ports (two on one side and one on the other, which is perfect for both lefties and righties) and a VGA-out if you want some extra desktop real estate. It also has the headphone and microphone ports too, which are also easily accessible.

On previous models of the Eee PC, this change in structure and layout wouldn't have been possible but Asus has been cunning again with the S101. On the first models of the Eee line, such as my now antiquated Eee PC 701, the battery was always quite bulky and bulbous. It ballooned out of the back of the unit like a rotting elephant and hogged all the space at the back. Now Asus has done away with that style of battery though, reducing the overall thickness of the Eee in the process.

Asus Eee PC S101 Asus Eee PC S101 - Features Asus Eee PC S101 Asus Eee PC S101 - Features

The new battery design is much flatter and now no longer sits in the rear of the Eee PC, but in the base where it takes up about half of the space. This frees up room at the back of the unit for some more sensibly placed connectivity, as well as spreading the weight of the battery more evenly and making the entire chassis feel lighter and better balanced as a result.

No longer will the Eee tip over backwards if the monitor is pushed back too much – though unfortunately Asus still hasn't made my wish a reality and mounted the screen with piano hinges so that the whole laptop can be folded into a tablet-style mode. It would make it so much easier to use as a map reader.

Those of you wondering if the new battery has effected the power performance of the S101 may have cause for concern though. The new battery may be a fancy Lithium Polymer sort, but the battery life has still been reduced from the the seven or so hours on offer in the Eee PC 1000H to just five hours of usage with all the usual cutbacks made to brightness, WiFi and so on.

It also dismays us a little to see that the new version of the Eee hasn't solved the issue of charging peripherals. One of the things which first endeared the Eee PC 701 to us way back when was that it didn't rely on a bulky power brick for charging; just a simple cable. Previous models however have required a charging brick and the S101 is no different.

True, the brick may be smaller than a chocolate bar and no heavier than the average paperback, but the fact that you'll still need to carry both it and the figure of eight power lead if you want to charge it on the go is enough to give us a brief flare of dismay.

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